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Coroners and Justice Bill

I should like to make a little progress first. The Gage working group rejected the introduction of a United States-style sentencing grid and instead called for the strengthening of the Sentencing Guidelines Council. We support that approach. That is why we propose the new council in part 4 of the Bill. One of the purposes of the council has been explained with admirable clarity in that"““there should be a new, formal mechanism whereby the impact of proposed sentencing changes is assessed by an independent body, so that the Government and Parliament are properly informed about the decisions they take, and to ensure that they understand what resources will be necessary to deliver those changes. But that is entirely different to proposing that sentences should be limited by the resources made available by the Government after the framework is set.””" That was the opinion of the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs, when speaking in November 2007, and I wholly agree with what he said.